- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Tens of millions of Americans with federal student loan debt have had a financial reprieve for more than three years as a pandemic-era repayment pause was extended multiple times since March 2020.
Now many face a new reality on Sunday, Oct. 1, when they are due to resume making payments, all while struggling with nagging inflation and rising interest rates.
More than 45 million borrowers together owe approximately $1.6 trillion, according to President Joe Biden’s administration, which tried to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for tens of millions of eligible borrowers, only to have the Supreme Court kill the program in June.
Almost everyone I talk to about this has the same idea: “I’m not gonna pay that, they proved they don’t need the money, it’s inflated anyways etc”
I agree with them
The situation is shameful, but it’s wishful thinking that such actions will end in any other way than interest accruing, making the inevitable repayment even more expensive and difficult. The system is set up so you can’t run away from it.
All I have to do is last to death.
Yeah I don’t think these people saying they won’t don’t realize that this can end up at wage garnishment.
Up to 15-25% of disposable pay depending on the loan (federal or private).
Student loans are pretty much the worst type of loan you can have. They can garnish your wages, they can sue you, they can take any tax refunds and social security benefits you might eventually be paid and there isn’t really a way to make them disappear.
The inability to get out of them and enforcement mechanisms make “not paying” a bad plan if you’re staying in the country. IBR and riding it out until it’s forgiven seems better, even though it’s shitty.
I have some left and have no plans to pay. Let them sue me. I want them to take me to court, hire a lawyer, spend a week, and deal with collections for the few thousand they claim I owe.
Assuming you are employed, they will just garnish your wages. They don’t have to sue for it, federal loans don’t even need a court order to do it. Private loans do, but they are also able to take more money out of your check.
Which I can appeal and if it really came down to it I can switch over to an independent contractor in about a week. But it won’t come down to it because before that happens I will just setup a 5 dollar monthly payment.
They will find a way to destroy your credit on case you had any hope of purchasing anything with a mortgage \ loan in the next 7 years
Don’t worry, the insane cost of rent has already prevented most of us from being able to buy a house in the next seven years.
You can’t kill what is already dead. I keep emergency funds around, enough that I could buy a brand new economy car at any time. Have a single credit card with a 5,000 dollar limit and charge a cup of coffee on it once a month to verify it still works.
Debt is evil.
deleted by creator
“we help in thoughts and prayers, not dollars and cents” - GOP and Supreme Court probably
3 years to make principal-only payments to get ahead of a debt they agreed to repay.
Instead, now their debt will grow faster than their mandatory minimum payments.
Yes, my daughter and son did use the time to pay theirs off and in great careers.
Personal responsibility? Commence the downvotes.
I mean…I still owe $8K and I spent the last three years paying directly to the principal as well. That said, I still hate this. Rather than being able to pay off in another year or so, it’s going to be closer to five years.
There’s options available. Like, how about a “step up” rather than just reopening the floodgates? Turn on the repayments, but not the interest. How about keep the interest off the last $20K if you’re not in the rears? Allow people to get a chance to make progress on their debts, or at least give an incentive on keeping the payments current.
A direct return to the status quo doesn’t get lenders their money in a time of rising rates, and it definitely doesn’t help those in debt nor the overall economy.
“Allow people to get a chance”
They had 3 years… before that it was expected that they would make payments. Are you under the impression that everyone took out these loans thinking that they would never have to pay them back?
So do you not understand who has the most trouble paying off this debt or what’s up?
Most high-risk student loan debt is held by college dropouts. People who went to college, it wasn’t for them (or life intervened), and they had to leave college - with the debt and without the benefit.
We as a society urge students to go to college because having a highly educated workforce is a good thing. This is an externality we created and it behooves us to resolve this externality socially.
The question of “personal responsibility” is, as is so often the case, irrelevant when discussing governance. You don’t govern for the best case scenario, you govern to address externalities.
I like how you add information that I never critiqued. The point is that claiming that having 3 years of minimal payments is somehow not a reprieve from the previous circumstances, is utterly false.
If you want to argue for free university, then fine do it. But do it from the very beginning, don’t tack it on to some vaguely related initial comment.
“The question of personal responsibility is irrelevant in governance”
I actually agree, it’s where I think conservatives fail. Where liberals fail is ascribing moral blame for personal decisions on others. When someone makes a conscious personal decision to take risk, you can’t just blame society for when they individually have an unsatisfactory outcome. (It’s the same shit we get when we ask how society failed all those poor mass shooters).
Now of course this entire post was an individualistic claim, so maybe you can see why I didn’t start with a federal policy critique.
Fuck off
When the rich strategically default, it’s viewed and “smart”. When the rest of us do it it’s “personal responsibility”.
They also got free money then sued here because they didn’t get any free money from the student loan forgiveness
Sounds about white.
You can fuck right off.